Calombaris pleads guilty to assault

Tony Burke defends Grand Mufti

Australia and its politicians should grasp goodwill when it is offered not promote community division says Labor frontbencher Tony Burke.

Yet in the case of the terrorist threat, divisions have emerged as a direct response – indeed, they may well be the terrorist's central aim given that the physical damage achievable through terrorist acts is inevitably limited.

In the shattered aftermath of the Paris atrocities, cracks in multicultural Australia were exposed immediately. Even as political leaders and commentators condemned the murderous rampage, some also lamented what they viewed as "an excuse" or coded justification offered by the Grand Mufti of Australia, Dr Ibrahim Abu Mohammed.

The leader of Australia's Sunni Muslims had issued a press release – subsequently clarified – which had also listed "causative" failings of the West such as entrenched: "racism, Islamophobia, curtailing freedoms through securitisation, duplicitous foreign policies, and military intervention".

"While he [Turnbull] is out of the country, it seems that members of his own party are set on doing just that: irresponsibly stirring up division and distrust between Muslim and non-Muslim Australians," fumed Labor's Mark Dreyfus.

"The Prime Minister's welcome change of rhetoric will prove very hollow indeed if it is defied by members of his own party."

Tony Burke described Frydenberg's arguments as old rhetoric that was "needlessly aggressive in its tone, illogical in its substance and self-defeating in its impact". "His comments were an attempt, more than a week on, to relaunch an attack against the Grand Mufti of Australia, Dr Ibrahim Abu Mohamed," Burke said.

But if Frydenberg had been divisive, where was the critique of Labor's Anthony Albanese who went further on Andrew Bolt's Sunday program a week earlier, describing the Grand Mufti's contribution as "completely unacceptable" and providing "some sort of excuse for this behaviour".

"There is no excuse for the fundamentalist form of Islam leading to terrorism being found to be somehow in the name of religion ... he has a critical role, particularly in sending messages to young people and I note that he made a further statement on the following day, but he needs to be very careful about the messages that are sent out there, particularly to his own community."

It is noteworthy that the Grand Mufti himself acknowledged his initial press release had fallen short in not unconditionally condemning the unspeakable violence in France.